Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Chicago Sun-Times: Lauren Underwood increases lead over Jim Oberweis in Illinois Congress contest: up by 3,524 votes by Lynn Sweet
WASHINGTON — With more mail ballots counted Tuesday, Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., increased her lead over Republican Jim Oberweis to 3,524 votes in the hotly contested 14th Congressional District contest.
The latest numbers, according to the Associated Press, gives Underwood 50.4% to Oberweis with 49.6%.
In raw numbers, as of Tuesday afternoon, Underwood had 198,200 votes to Oberweis with 194,676.
Most of the latest count came from ballots in the parts of Lake and McHenry Counties in the district.
There are seven counties in the sprawling 14th Congressional District, GOP suburban and rural turf Underwood flipped in 2018 when she beat Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., by 15,871 votes, or 52.5% to 47.5%.
In 2020, the winning margin of either Underwood of Oberweis, a state senator, seems on track to be slimmer.
There are an estimated 12,000 ballots in the district still to be counted, a source told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania Republicans are parroting Trump’s false election claims as the post-Trump GOP takes shape by Andrew Seidman
Pennsylvania Republicans are going all in on President Donald Trump’s false election claims.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry attended a “Stop the Steal” rally in Harrisburg last Friday before going on Fox Business Network to declare the state’s election “a horrific embarrassment."
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser told Fox News host Sean Hannity the situation is dire: “This is no longer one citizen, one vote.”
And U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler told the conservative outlet Newsmax that "we know there is voter fraud that occurred,” it’s just a question of how much. “Very suspect,” he said of the fact that the lead Trump held on election night in Pennsylvania had moved to a narrow Biden win.
NOLA.com: With Treme restaurant for sale, Baquet family’s long history in New Orleans food is ending by Ian McNulty
Creole gumbo has been a cornerstone dish in every restaurant Wayne Baquet has run, including the last, Li’l Dizzy’s Café in Treme.
In the realm of New Orleans cuisine, Baquet himself has been just as constant a presence, serving as proprietor at a succession of restaurants, a perennial Jazz Fest food vendor and the steward of one of the city’s longest-running Black restaurant family legacies.
Now, though, change has come. After months of speculation, Baquet confirmed he will not reopen Li’l Dizzy‘s and has decided to retire.
The restaurant could conceivably reopen as
Li’l Dizzy’s with new owners. Baquet has been talking with potential buyers since the summer, though none of those discussions has progressed.
However, Baquet’s own decision to leave the business signals the end of something much older and more far-reaching than any one restaurant, a story of New Orleans food and family going back to the 1940s.
Washington Post: Biden and Democrats push back against Trump and Republicans’ recalcitrance over election results by Matt Viser and Michael Scherer
President-elect Joe Biden and his Democratic allies on Tuesday rebuked President Trump and top Republican leaders for refusing to acknowledge the results of the election, even as Biden continued with the pre-presidential necessities of building an administration and fielding congratulatory calls from top European allies.
Democrats have grown increasingly agitated that Republicans have been unwilling to accept the election results. On Tuesday, they began making more forceful arguments that the intransigence of Trump administration officials was putting national security at risk, and that his arguments contesting election results had little basis in reality.
“It’s an embarrassment, quite frankly,” Biden said of Trump’s refusal to concede. “How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”
Buzzfeed: Two Republican Members Of The Electoral College Have A Message: Biden Won by Albert Samaha, Amber Jamieson, and Rosalind Adams
Once it was clear to him that Joe Biden had won the election, Bill Feehan, chair of the La Crosse County Republican Party in Wisconsin, tried to push the disappointing outcome to the back of his mind. If Donald Trump had won the state, Feehan would have been one of the 10 GOP electors to cast a vote for the candidate, the final stage of the byzantine process by which Americans choose a president.
But since the Democrat won, the task instead falls to electors chosen by that party. With his candidate defeated, Feehan was ready to move on. But his candidate, Donald Trump, is not.
And like the president, many members of Feehan’s local GOP aren’t so willing to accept the loss.
On Monday night, at the La Crosse County Republican Party’s monthly meeting, around 80 people showed up, many of them “concerned about voter fraud,” he said, and asking, “what, if anything, the Republican Party of Wisconsin is going to do about it.”
USA Today: Supreme Court appears unlikely to topple Affordable Care Act in latest challenge by Republicans by Richard Wolf
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court appeared likely Tuesday to uphold the Affordable Care Act for the third time in eight years, even with the Trump administration urging its elimination before an emboldened conservative majority on the nation's highest court.
After upholding the health care law in 2012 and 2015, the court was faced with a new Republican challenge stemming from Congress' elimination in 2017 of the penalty imposed on consumers who refuse to buy health insurance. Since the law originally was upheld as a tax, challengers argued it became unconstitutional without one.
But even if the mandate to buy insurance has to be struck down, two key justices indicated that the rest of the 906-page law should be able to survive without it.
One was Chief Justice John Roberts, who has played the leading role in rescuing the health care law in the past. When Congress repealed the tax penalty in 2017, he said it did not try to strike down the entire law.
STATnews: Restaurants and gyms were spring ‘superspreader’ sites. Occupancy limits could control Covid, new study predicts by Elizabeth Cooney
Using cellphone data from 1 in 3 Americans, researchers have identified the indoor public places most responsible for the spread of Covid-19 in the spring, and they argue that sharply limiting the occupancy of these locales — chiefly restaurants, gyms, cafes, hotels, and houses of worship — could control the raging pandemic without resorting to lockdowns.
Their analysis also explains how disparities in risk contribute to the disproportionate disease burden borne by people of color who have been less able than higher-income white people to work remotely and who tend to visit grocery stores and other places that tend to be smaller and more crowded than those in white neighborhoods.
“It corresponds to what we thought from the beginning, that there are certain activities that lead to spread more than other activities,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was not involved in the study. “When you are thinking of targeted public health interventions, it’s important to focus on those activities where that’s occurring and not being overly blunt and blocking and stopping all activities that may not necessarily have been a major contributor to spread.”
DW: Coronavirus vaccine: EU reaches deal with Pfizer, BioNTech
A European Commission spokesman said Tuesday that the EU had concluded negotiations with Pfizer and BioNTech to secure millions of doses of their coronavirus vaccine.
The announcement comes just a day after the companies announced their experimental vaccine was shown to be 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.
The Commission is expected to approve the agreement on Wednesday.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the vaccine is likely to be ready in the first quarter of 2021 and hopes to secure 100 million doses for Germany.
Spahn, who contracted COVID-19 himself in late October, said it's important that Germany and the rest of the EU don't fall behind in the vaccine rollout.
"We of course couldn't explain to Europeans and especially to Germans if a vaccine would be available and [distributed] in the USA or in other regions in the world, but not in Germany and Europe."
Spahn emphasized that the European Commission had the mandate to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies — not individual states.
BBC News: Denmark mink cull: Government admits culling had no legal basis
The Danish government has admitted there was no legal basis for the mass cull of farmed mink it ordered after a mutated version of the coronavirus was found in the animals.
It previously warned the effectiveness of any future vaccine could be affected by the mutation.
Denmark is the world's biggest producer of mink fur, and its main export markets are China and Hong Kong.
The culling began late last month, after many mink cases were detected.
"Even if we were in a rush, it should have been completely clear to us that new legislation was required, and it was not. I apologise for that," PM Mette Frederiksen told parliament on Tuesday.
The Danish government will now put forward legislation to back up its order for the mass cull.
AP College Football Top 10
1. Alabama
2. Notre Dame
3. Ohio State
4. Clemson
5. Texas A&M
6. Florida
7 Cincinnati
8. Brigham Young
9. Miami, Fl.
10. Indiana
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting a Tuesday night owls thread tonight.
Everyone have a good evening!